This week in history

June 23 1888: A monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky is unveiled on St. Sophia Square in Kyiv.

2001: Pope John Paul II visits Kyiv and Lviv.

June 24 1934: Ukraine’s highest state and party institutions are transferred from Kharkiv to Kyiv, the new capital city.

1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares that the US government is prepared to aid the Soviet Union in its war against Nazi Germany.

June 25 Ukrainian Customs Day

1992: The All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council resolves to unite the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church into a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate.

June 26 1919: The Komsomol of Ukraine is founded at the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Working Youth Communist Organizations in Kyiv.

1994: As a result of the presidential elections in Ukraine, none of the candidates win the legally required number of votes. Another round will be held.

June 27 1964: A monument to the great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko is unveiled in Washington, D.C..

2001: On the last day of his visit to Ukraine, Pope John Paul II takes part in a Byzantine liturgy celebrated at the Lviv Race Track, which is attended by 1.5 million faithful.

1996: The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopts the new Constitution of Ukraine.

June 29 1945: The USSR and Czechoslovakia sign a treaty annexing Transcarpathian Ukraine to the Ukrainian SSR.

1995: President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine signs an edict instituting the national “Teacher of the Year” competition.